I had an interesting experience this week that I wanted to share with all of you. It’s a great lesson in Business 101 as well as a good example of how to screw-up your chances of making a sale to an end user. It all comes down to the fact that at the end of the day, businesses don’t do business with businesses, people do business with people.

So here’s what happened. As many of you know, I work with startups and Fortune 500 companies to help them acquire domain names for their business. I do not broker domains for investors but instead help real businesses get the domains they are looking for. This year alone I’ve done close to $850,000 in deals, I can’t talk about any of them, but if there’s any way I can in the future you can bet I will!

One of my clients contacted me inquiring about a few domain names they were interested. None were category-killer by any means, in fact most were mediocre three-word .COM, but the client really wanted one of them and had a six-figure budget for the name. So I emailed all the domain owners asking what price they might be looking for.

Of the people I emailed (six in total) three came back with a price range, two said they didn’t want to throw-out a number but would consider an offer, and one guy was just a complete jerk. It was the guy who was a jerk that I didn’t quite get, he wasn’t sitting on a six-figure domain, it was a name worth maybe $10K-$20K (and only to the right buyer) but if he got six-figures I can tell you he’d be jumping with joy. So what did he do?

Rather than throw-out a range or ask me for an offer he responded by saying, “If you really wanted the domain you would have made an offer.” Poof, no deal. We emailed six people and sure, not all of them gave a range, those that asked for offers, we submitted offers to, but this guy lost the deal by being a jerk. While I myself also push potential Buyers to make an offer, I simply ask for an offer. This rude response let me know right-away that this was not someone I would ever want to do business with, and since my client had plenty of other options, we bought a different domain.

If you want to lose a potential end-user sale, be a jerk right away and watch people avoid you like the plague. Not only did we not respond to this email, but I’ve marked down the owner so I know in the future to stay-away from this guy. If he would have simply said, “I only accept offers and will not throw-out a price.” We would have made an offer, but by being rude and showing he was someone that would be a complete hassle to do business with, we looked the other way.

Now just to be clear here. I’m not talking about a category-killer one or two-word .COM, and I’m not talking about any big Domainers that we all know. I’m talking about a guy with a mediocre name and a missed opportunity. Like I said in the beginning, businesses don’t do business with businesses, people do business with people. Responding rudely to an inquiry is a great way to lose a potential sale, and you never know who is making the offer or what their budget is so you might just miss that one big chance.

I had a great email conversation with one of my blog readers who agreed to let me share his story with the rest of you. Many of my readers reach-out to me for advice and as you know if you’ve emailed me before, I respond to each and every email I receive. Last week a reader sent me a very interesting email, he said that about a year ago he realized he was doing too many things, so he decided to focus on doing just one thing, the problem was, he wasn’t making any money.

The direction he was going was good, and focus is absolutely a good thing, if you’re focusing on the right things. His story is probably quite similar to many of you which is why I thought it would be a good one to share.

So let’s rewind to two years ago when the reader first got started in Domaining. He said he began the same way so many of us do, hand-registering tons of domains thinking that if juts a few sold for big bucks he’d strike it rich. Then, also like many of us, he found-out that pretty much everything he registered was garbage, he didn’t take the time to learn anything about what makes a domain valuable and ended-up with a nice domain collection, but not many investments.

Along with registering domains he was trying to build some out, park others, and sell others to end-users. He spent around 20 hours a week and made about $500/month leading to a very disappointing pay of $6.25/hour – yikes! So he decided it was time for a change and time to get more focused.

First he let all the junk he had registered drop, this was a good move. Then he decided to focus on only one thing, with the goal of doing one thing right, and then expanding to doing more. Seeing all the great opportunities in the expired domain market he started buying expired domains. This was his sole focus, once again he was spending 20 hours a week, but now laser-focused on buying expired names and selling them to end-users.

A few months later he had spent about $10,000 on expired domains and sold about $1,000 worth of domains. He didn’t get it, all the expired domains he was buying had multiple bidders, other people wanted the domains, yet he wasn’t making enough sales and was spending a lot more than he was making. Here’s the big problem, while he was focused, he wasn’t focused on the right thing. Yes, buying and selling expired domains can be a very profitable venture, if you take the time to do the research with each and every name.

This was the problem. While he was focused on doing just one thing, he wasn’t focused on doing it right. Instead he thought, “if other people are bidding on a domain, it must be worth at least 2x what he paid.” This simple assumption left him $10,000 in the hole while he was watching other Domainers make a killing flipping expired domains. What was he doing wrong?

I took a look at the domains he had bought, while there were some decent names in there, most were not a great fit for an end-user. He was more focused than ever, but by not focusing on the right things like doing the research, speaking to other people in the space, networking at conference and learning from others, he was actually repeating many of the same mistakes he made early-on.

It turns-out that I was the first person he had ever reached-out to, up until last week every assumption he had about flipping domains had come from, well, his own assumptions, rather than advice from people who make money doing it. We put-together a game-plan, I connected him with a mentor who is an expert in flipping domains (not me, this is not my expertise), I pointed him towards some great articles, and I recommended that he attend a conference like TRAFFIC to get the chance to network with and learn from other Domainers.

In just one week I have already seem him make some very positive changes to his strategy. He’s still focused on doing this one thing, but now he’s doing it right, or at least much better than before (this does take more than a week to learn!).

If this sounds anything like you, take a step back and ask yourself the all-important question. Are you making money doing what you’re doing, and if not, are you making any changes? Doing the wrong thing over and over doesn’t mean that eventually you’ll stumble on the right thing. At the end of the day if what you’re doing isn’t working, find someone who has done it and ask them for help. It is connecting with mentors, people who have done what you want to do that makes all the difference.

There are more opportunities to make money in the Domaining industry than ever before, and heck, we’re still just getting started. If what you’re doing isn’t working, don’t blame the industry, blame yourself, but do something to change what you’re doing, and do it now. There are plenty of people like me in the industry who are more than happy to help you get started or point you in the right direction and a conference, while seemingly expensive, is actually one of the smallest investments you could ever make.

So don’t live in a bubble, get out there, connect with other people, learn, grow, and share with others. Whatever you do, don’t waste your own time, because time is more valuable than anything that money can buy.

(Photo Credit)

The following is a guest post by Kevin Fink, the Senior Recovery agent at DomainTheft.org. Kevin has been working hard since we launched working with domain owners every single day and successfully recovering names for businesses small and large! 

Ok, here’s a little secret of mine, one of my many professional fantasies is to work for the FBI or the CIA. I’m a pretty stellar detective; I read people well and usually know when there’s dirt to uncover. 

When Morgan asked me to be a Domain Recovery Agent for DomainTheft.org, I jumped at the chance. As the world’s first verifiable domain recovery resource, I realize how valuable an asset this is to the domaining community, and I am honored to be involved.

So what exactly is the role of a Domain Recovery agent?

I am essentially the liaison between each client (original domain owner), and the alleged thief. As I would soon come to learn, a “thief” can take on many different identities…

The first step in the recovery process is verifying claims that are routed through DomainTheft.org’s contact form. The WhoIs information only provides so much information: any changes to the DNS, nameservers, drops or IP addresses. But it is merely a first step in uncovering clues. 

Verification concludes upon receiving identification from the original owner, as well as proof of purchase or renewal of the domain in question.

Once our client is verified as the original owner, we then reach out to the alleged thief to attempt to verify the theft. This is more of a formality, as it’s fairly obvious no thief would write us back to admit their crime, unless perhaps they felt they acquired it above-board. We send out five messages to the alleged thief, and if no response is received, we list the domain as “STOLEN” in the Domain Theft database. 

Clients can opt to privatize this publication but most are happy for the exposure, even if closing the case extends past our jurisdiction.

The first swath of reports were difficult to confirm. Requesting pertinent and sensitive information to verify identity of the owner usually yields one of two things: an enthusiastic response, with all necessary documents for proof of ownership – and usually a viable story describing the theft – or…silence.

I did hear from one individual who was very uneasy about sending us proof of ownership, because he feared identity theft on top of his already crippling domain theft. This is of course understood. While domains have been around almost 20 years, domain theft is not a mainstream thing. It should be noted that we are working on future partnerships with various law enforcement agencies – so hopefully, between the lot of us, we can curb domain theft even further.

But just as in the case of rising identity theft and other digital hijinks, there are some disturbing trends as to the kind of domain theft I have been made aware of. There are most definitely recurring themes. The most benign, and surprising, among them: the failure of domain owners in realizing that their name must be renewed annually. The name drops, disappears from their account, usually to be picked-up on the aftermarket or by a squatter, only to be held for an exorbitant ransom.

The first batch of cases mostly dealt with those simply not understanding the process. I would ask for proof of renewal to ensure I was dealing with the rightful owner, and I either wouldn’t hear back at all, or would get a message back synonymous to a hand-slap to their forehead. This trend really drives home the notion that domain ownership is still a fairly new and misunderstood concept for many people.

We’ve had other clients who have simply had their email accounts hacked – which would be a disaster of epic proportions for most of us tech savvy individuals. In this instance, their password was changed before they could alter the logins at their registrar; all domains were lost.

In a benign case of what amounts more to domain “loss,” take, for example, my own experience as a project manager. In my outside work, for one of the clients I am developing a site for, I have assumed control of his hosting info, to setup and modify the site. This is upon his request, as he is less-facile with web stuff and prefers me to be in charge. But…what if something happened to me, or if I just disappeared? My client would have a difficult time getting his account back in his hands.

So there you have it! A look-into what it’s like being a Domain Recovery Agent, in part two of my post I’ll cover some of the thefts we have seen and of course the best part of it all, the domains safely returned to their rightful owners.

Building a brand sounds exciting doesn’t it? While it is exciting and a lot of fun, it’s also a lot of work and often a bit of money too if you’re not doing the development yourself. I haven’t done development in years but have been building tons of brands which means that most of my time is spent understanding the market, and of course shelling-out the dough for development, social media management, etc.

Over the years I have found that the biggest mistake most people make when building a brand is not taking the time to learn about their market. They get excited about building a brand because of the search volume or CPC (or both) and rush in to get started. Many people then look back six-months later and wonder why they aren’t making any money, the answer often lies in a lack of experience in their market. While some brands can make a splash right-away, other markets require far larger investments and longer time-horizons to be successful.

Here’s an example. Let’s suppose you bought a great domain name related to Car Insurance. You’re jumping for joy as you know that insurance is a hot niche with lots of money in it. You want to rank well for “car insurance” and pay a developer $2,500 to build a kick-ass site for your brand. Next you pay an SEO guru $1,000/month to build backlinks and get your site ranked. Six-months and $8,500 later you’re perplexed, your brand is still not on page one, it’s not making any money, and you’re not happy.

The problem here is you didn’t take the time to learn your market. If you did you’d see that the people ranking well for this term have spent tens of thousands of dollars on SEO, you’re measly $6,000 doesn’t even get you close. Now you might be out of money and after expecting a big return you are out of funds. Since you didn’t properly research your market, you didn’t take the time to understand what it would take to be successful in the space.

Every market is different and some are more competitive and expensive to enter than others. If you don’t take the time to understand your market, you don’t really know what level of investment to make, and what outcome to expect. Here are a few things I look-into before even thinking of building a brand:

1. Who is on Google Page One? Look at who is on the first page of Google, is it major Fortune 500 companies or are there smaller brands on there? If the front page is dominated by Google Local results do you even stand a chance? Look at the first page of Google, above-the-fold and see who is there. Now, learn everything you can about the companies listed above the fold. What is their SEO budget? How many people are working on the site? How many backlinks do they have, etc.
2. Do you have the resources to beat your competitors? Now that you know more about your competition, it’s time to ask yourself if you have the resources to really compete. If you have $100,000 to spend and your competitors are all spending $20,000 you can probably blow them out of the water, if they’re all spending $500,000 you might not stand a chance. Make sure you have the adequate resources to compete, this isn’t always money, it could be a great team, amazing SEO skills, Social Media mastery, etc. Just make sure you have the right resources to make it happen.
3. Is your market growing? So you’ve done your research and now know your market, and you’re happy to say you can compete and be a real player in the space. Now the real question is…do you really want to be in this market? Look at market data for the industry you are entering and make sure its growing. There’s no point in investing your time and money in a market that’s declining. I wouldn’t want to build a brand that is focused on Desktop Computers since Laptops and Tablets are what’s hot and the Desktop market is declining rapidly. Make sure you understand your market as a whole and where it’s going, and stick with markets that are growing, and fast!

Building a brand means building a business, building a business is all about understanding your market and your customer. If you don’t know much about your market, or the industry you are entering, you could burn through valuable time and money investing in a space you either can’t compete in, or you don’t want to be a part of anyways because it is declining.

Hello from Australia! This has been a very exciting week starting-out in Auckland, New Zealand, then making my way to Melbourne, and then back to New Zealand tonight! Whenever I’m in another country I always pay careful attention to the domain names I see on billboards, in magazines and on the side of cars. It only takes a few minutes of being in another country for me to notice how my perceptions of .COM domination, while true, are very US-centric.

In New Zealand I would say that about 90% of the domains I saw ended in .CO.NZ and the same has been true in Australia for .COM.AU. While I have been to Australia and New Zealand many times before, it is always a nice reminder of how going global often means going local.

Now does this mean you should dump all your .COMs and replace them with .COM.AU? No. The liquidity is still the strongest in .COM, but for anyone that thinks .COM owns the world, think again. Every country has their own ccTLD and in many cases this TLD completely trumps .COM in the given country. Go to Germany and you’ll see .DE everywhere, Italy and .IT, Spain and .ES.

There are Domainers in all of these markets, placing their bets just like the rest of us, on domains that might catch the eye of an end-user or generate passive income. While the market for a .COM.AU or .CO.NZ is significantly smaller than .COM, there is a market and if you’re building a business that targets this part of the world, owning a domain in this TLD makes a lot of sense. A great example was talking to a few people here about Kayaking.org. They said that if they were looking to go kayaking in New Zealand they would trust kayaking.co.nz above kayaking.org, and it makes perfect sense.

What I think is so exciting about coming to this side of the world is that the Domain market is still in its infancy. While I don’t think these TLDs will ever reach the scale of .COM (not enough people here!) there are some great opportunities and for investors building global brands, ccTLDs offer a great way to really connect with people around the world. It may sound counter-intuitive but sometimes you do have to go local in order to go global. So don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that anyone reading this should go-out and buy all the .COM.AU and .CO.NZ domains they can find, what I am saying is that if you really want to connect with people here, having a brand on the TLD they see every single day can give you a nice advantage and connection with the market.

Okay, it’s 30 degrees today (celsius) and it’s time to begin the day’s adventure. I hope you’re all having a great week and hello from down under!

(Photo Credit)

It’s amazing how one little letter can make such a big difference but when it comes to Domaining, it does. When you’re buying a domain name it can be easy to get excited about what you might think are hot keywords, only to be off by one letter. At DOMAINfest this year I was talking to a major domain broker about this exact topic. He was telling me how getting this wrong could be the difference between a four-figure sale and a six-figure sale, especially when it comes to end-user buyers.

So what’s the big deal? It all comes down to what makes sense and what people are really searching for. Since a domain name represents the name of a brand end-users and major companies want their brand, not something close to their brand. Here’s a few examples with search volume and CPC data coming from the Google Adwords Keyword Tool:

“Buy Car” – 18,100 Global Monthly Searches, CPC $3.08
“Buys Car” – < 10 Global Monthly Searches, CPC $0

“Home Insurance” – 110,000 Global Monthly Searches, CPC $15.45
“Homes Insurance” – 260 Global Monthly Searches, CPC $8.81

“Home Improvement” – 60,500 Global Monthly Searches, CPC $2.60
“Home Improvements” – 6,600 Global Monthly Searches, CPC $0.62

As you can see from these examples, that little “S” can really make one heck of a difference. However this difference isn’t just search volume and CPC, it is also whether an end-user wants your domain, or a domain name really close to yours. I get at least one email a week from someone offering a domain name that is exactly the same as one that sold for five or six-figures, the only difference – an “S”. They are often looking for the same price and basing this on the previous sale, what they don’t realize is that the two names are actually very different.

When I buy domains I always make sure I am buying the dominant phrase. Yes, this usually means paying more but this really can make the difference between making a good investment and “almost” making a good investment. So next time you buy a domain, take the time to check and make sure that you’re buying the phrase that people are searching for an advertisers are paying for, or as I like to say, “Stop Collecting, Start Investing!”

I get emails from Domainers every week with huge lists of domains. As I’ve said before, I do respond to every single email my readers send me so I look at these lists and provide my honest, albeit quick, opinion. More and more I’m seeing new Domainers submit large lists of domains jam-packed with Trademark infringements.

I would say that about 99% of the time they don’t even know about Trademark infringement or the host of legal ramifications that come with it. Just the other week someone sent me a list with hundreds of names all with the name of a major software company in the domain. I had to break the bad new to them and let them know that their portfolio of “Premium” domains, was sadly a portfolio of high-risk Trademark names!

Lucky for all of us there are a few easy ways to check if the domain or website you are looking at buying contains any potential Trademark violations.

• Automated Tools – you can do a quick check using tools like Estibot, Valuate, or our new Website Appraisal Tool – Appraiso
• Do It Yourself – did you know that you can actually search the government Trademark database for free online? Just go to USPTO.gov and select “Trademark Search” from the “Trademark” menu at the top. You can then enter the words in the domain name or website you would like to buy and make sure they are not infringing on any existing Trademark.
• Hire A Lawyer – if you think a domain or website might be infringing on a Trademark but aren’t sure, that’s when you should hire a lawyer. Especially when it comes to making a large purchase you want to make sure that you are buying an asset, not a liability.

So next time you see a great domain that you think would be the perfect addition to your portfolio, take a second to make sure if doesn’t infringe on any existing Trademarks. If you are worried about people buying or registering domains with your own Trademark in them I highly recommend the Monitoring Services offered by Domain Tools.

Take the time, every time, and you’ll never have to worry about Trademark issues again!

I’ve decided that once a week I will take one of the questions I receive via email, and address it in a blog post. I get tons of email from blog readers and respond to all of them, I thought this weekly feature would allow other readers to benefit from a question that someone else had. Heck, if one person had the question, I’m sure other people do too!

The question that came-in last week was “Can you list a domain name for sale with multiple services?” 

The answer, in short is yes, but you will need to be very vigilant at keeping all listings up-to-date if you happen to sell a domain. So if you have domains listed for sale at Sedo, Afternic, and Snapnames and a name sells through Afternic, make sure to take the name down from the other two sites.

This also means that if a domain goes into auction on one site, you’ll also want to remove it from the others. Since you probably aren’t selling hundreds of sites a day this is actually pretty easy to manage.

The one place you need to be careful is when you’re dealing with a broker or an exclusive auction service. In this case you may have signed a contract indicating that the given marketplace or broker has an exclusive on the domain for a certain period of time. This means that you cannot list the domain for sale on multiple services.

Be very careful here to pay attention to the length of time this exclusivity period is for. I have heard of a few times where someone thought they were no longer under and exclusive, sold the name through another service only to have to pay the broker or marketplace a commission since it was under an exclusive contract.

At the end of the day you want to get your domain names in front of as many eyeballs as possible so using multiple services definitely makes sense. Just make sure you take the time to keep your listings up-to-date and make sure you understand any and all agreements that you sign.

Hope this helps! As always please feel free to share your comments below. I’m sure some of you have some pretty interesting stories to share here and I would love to hear them! Comment and let your voice be heard!

Following trends is something that many Domainers do, and while in many cases you can end-up buying a bunch of junk, just like mining for gold, sometimes you get lucky. Trend Domaining isn’t a major part of my personal strategies but I have had my share of trend Domain flips enough to know that there is opportunity if you get a trend early.

Back in 2008 I was able to do very well with the huge amount of traffic around the government Stimulus Check. In Q4 of last year I sold NearfieldCommunications.org, a domain I had hand-registered and a trend I still think is hot. My point is, don’t base your whole business on trend domains, but there’s nothing wrong with investing in them…if you can get the right name.

Of course with every keyword there are a zillion terrible domain combinations that can be made. If you’re going after a trend you really have to be in early enough to get one of the good domains within the space. If you find yourself buying more than ten domains you’re probably already going too far.

Okay, now that I’ve said all of that, let me tell you five trends that I think Domainers will be rallying around this year:

• Cloud – this trend is still in and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, nothing replacing the cloud, it’s just getting more well-known!
• Nearfield Communications (NFC) – I picked this trend last year and still think this is a trend that is in its infancy, lots of room for growth here.
• HD Tablets – it seems like HD Tablets are going to be the next new craze layered on top of the existing tablet craze.
• Elections – election domains could get hot and then very cold very quickly, I’d stay away from this trend plus most of the election names, including all of those with “2012″ in them have been gone for quite a while now.
• App – there’s an app for just about everything and that means that Domainers have gone nuts buying names with the word App before or after another word. While apps are a trend you’re really playing the lottery with this one, still that being said, like any trend domain, you could get lucky and find someone who really wants your app name…but something tells me you’ll be trying to unload the whole portfolio a year or two from now.

These are the trends that I think Domainers will rally around, but what the heck do I know? Let me know if you agree that the trends above will be hot in the Domaining community or share your own. As always comment and let your voice be heard!

(Photo Credit)

After writing my post this morning I got a very quick response from John over at Moniker. He wanted to follow-up right-away and solve the problem. This was great to see but I told him my disappointment with hitting this issue and fear of other customers having the same experience.

It looks like Key Systems has decided to get Moniker’s support department back in action by adding threw new staff member, two of whom started today. John told me that Moniker is very committed to growing their registrar, brokerage, and premium auctions business.

This is definitely encouraging to see, however I did point-out that your average user wouldn’t know people like John or Howard so might have been left waiting for a callback. That being said, with three new support staff-members it sounds like support has once again become a priority at Moniker.

Based on this information I’m going to stay onboard and give it a shot. That being said, a registrar’s support is absolutely critical for a business so I’ll need to see the improvement myself as a regular user before I add more names to my Moniker account. This morning my intention was not to slam Moniker out of the blue, but instead share what I saw as a serious decline in the quality of Moniker’s support. As someone who has heavily promoted Moniker in the past I had to point-out if I was leaving the registrar and why.

It’s great to see that Key Systems is adding more support and from what John has said it sounds like thing really are turning around. As always I will continue to update you, my readers. If I ever recommend a product that later down the road I find is not a good fit, I’ll always let you know. The Domaining space changes quickly, and when companies change hands you never know what will happen to them. I am committed to you my reader and I want to make sure that services I’ve recommended in the past, continue to deliver a quality of service I’d recommend for you right now.